The Man in the Shadow
by Alibi Nonsense
Summary: The child is not the man. Everybody knows that. Nobody wants to accept that. Lots of fluff at present.


Loki sighed, too tired even to sit up in bed let alone attempt the feast.

_I survived._

He was trembling from exhaustion, his eyes half-open and bruised around the edges: a lattice pattern of yellow and purple skin fading into the white of his upper jaw. Part sleep-loss, part fight, would be mostly gone by morning.

_I survived and lived to tell the tale._

"Loki?"

Frigga had been running him a bath. She entered, just as he was examining his fingernails, and sighed, sitting down on the bed and pulling her son into her chest.

_All on my own._

She was breathing into his hair like he was fading and a rogue strand had gotten caught up round his ear; fluttering every now and then in rhythm. He squirmed, but ultimately did not move.

_I was fighting on my own like Thor and I didn't die._

His arms snuck around the back of his mother's apron to the knot at the back and started absent-mindedly fiddling with it, all the finesse of an eighty-year-old (Asgardian years, that is). A left-handed thumb nosed its way past his lips and a hooked finger stroked his upper lip, imagining a moustache without him actually having to picture it in his head.

_I didn't die. Father knew I fought and he knows I didn't die._

It would be like his father's: he knew.

_Mother knows I didn't fight it with my magic and Father knows I fought it on my own._

And he would have a beard.

_On my __**own**__. Like __**Thor**__._

With a plait in it and a red bead to hold it in. And he would let his maidens pat it when they wanted to pat it and tie bows in it for important occasions.

_And Thor won't be able to tease me anymore because __**I**__ fought with someone on __**Midgard**__ and __**he didn't**__._

Loki sighed and removed his thumb.

"Mother?"

His voice came out tired, cracked and strangled; his vowels blurred and his consonants partially unintelligible, but Frigga had understood. She made a questioning noise into his hair and squeezed him tighter.

_I suppose it's no good asking for cake when I would hardly be able to swallow it._

"Am I going to have my bath now?"

She hummed into his hair again. He sighed.

_Cake would still be nice, though._

"I don't want a bath."

"Now Loki…"

"I'm really clean, especially my thumb is."

He would be getting gruel in the morning. He knew it.

"Come on; I've spent all that time running your bath and you don't want to get into it?"

"I don't want a bath! I want to go to the feast! Mother, why is Thor eating the feast and father is eating the feast, and Sif is eating and Volstagg and Fandral and Hogun and Thor and father and- Why can't I go to the feast? It's _my feast_! I don't want a bath and bed when I can't go to the feast like Thor and Sif and Fandral and-"

"Hush, Loki."

A hand was clamped over his mouth at the same time he was picked up off of the bed and settled on his mother's hip. He scowled and pushed her fingers to the side to make way for his thumb again. If he couldn't speak, he would be as cross and silent as he could, just until he could go to the feast. Mother would have to let him or he would starve himself to death.

_If I can't go, nobody should be able to go._

Frigga ignored him; stripping him of his nightshirt and underthings and lowering him gently into the hot water. Even though he was tired of being treated like a baby, it felt a funny sort of nice and he found he didn't want it to stop. It wasn't often his mother was there and Thor wasn't.

Against his will, he felt his eyes closing.

"Loki, don't go to sleep: it's the bath, darling."

His breathing steadying.

"Loki? Oh, never mind. Doesn't matter. You're only a child, after all."

Strong, warm, motherly hands lifting him up out of the water.

_Maybe I don't mind being treated like a baby a bit… Just this once…_

A fluffy white towel; bedsheets; a lamp glow in darkness…

"_Goodnight, Loki…"_

A kiss.

A door clicking shut.

Slippers down stone corridor.

_Maybe…just this once…_

The soft crackling of the fire in another room.

Quiet laughter upstairs.

Muffled.

Fading.

Slow

Breathing

Asleep…


End file.
